1. An overview of the Solar System

2. The Sun
is the biggest, brightest, & hottest object in the solar system.
The sun is an Medium star.
The sun is made of:
~ 70% hydrogen
~ 28% helium.

3. Inner Planets a.k.a. ~terrestrial planets Closer to the sun
Rocky core & surface
Smaller planets
Most have atmosphere

4. Mercury Mercury is solid rock covered with craters.
Looks like our moon
very thin atmosphere made of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind.

5. Venus Often called “ earth’s twin” The surface is rocky.
The atmosphere is thick
traps the heat.
Has “runaway” greenhouse effect

6. Earth Earth only planet with life. 71 %of surface = H2O. has one moon.
Atmosphere= shields, traps heat & provides the “right” gases

7. Mars Rocky surface. most highly varied and interesting terrain
found evidence of erosion in many places on Mars:
large floods
small river systems
thin atmosphere of mostly CO2
has two small moons.
permanent ice caps at both poles

8. Asteroid Belt An asteroid is a chunk of rock in space.
It is what was leftover when the Sun and planets formed.
asteroid belt is located between the planet Mars and Jupiter.
can be from a few feet to hundreds of miles wide.
has more than 40,000 asteroids that are half a mile long.
Gravitational pull from a planet can pull an asteroid form the belt and make it orbit around the planet like a moon.

9. Outer Planets A.k.a. ~ Gas Giants Huge planets Gas surfaces
Most many moons, rings = gravity

10. Jupiter
is a huge ball of gas.
High gravity
At least 39 moons

11. Saturn made of materials that are lighter than water.
If in a lake, it would float!
rings are not solid; they are composed of small countless particles.
The rings are very thin--less than one kilometer thick.

12. Uranus one of the giant gas planets.
is blue-green because of the methane in atmosphere.

13. Neptune
Like Uranus, the methane gives Neptune its color.